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There are some sections of the population who consider pizza to be a vegetable–but then again, most of them also consider recess or lunch their favorite subjects, because they are under the age of 11. So what’s Congress‘ excuse for deciding that a meal of pizza and tater tots is nutritious enough for school lunches?
It’s cheaper, and offers schools “more flexibility”.
The Obama Administration wants kids to eat healthier at school. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the final version of a spending bill, which came out on Monday, Congress and the the President seem to disagree on what constitutes “health.” The President thinks kids needs more leafy greens, less sodium, and more whole grains. Members of Congress, however, think that french fries and ketchup is nutritionally sound meal.
Earlier this year, the USDA laid out a bill that would change school lunch guidelines, by doing things like limiting the number of starchy vegetables offered to kids, limiting sodium in lunches, and removing pizza sauce’s ridiculous “vegetable” status (yes, two tablespoons of pizza sauce is a vegetable according to the government). Congress sent their version of the bill back–and from it, they’d struck nearly every health requirement, and upheld that pizza is totally on par with lettuce, spinach, and carrots.
The members of Congress who helped snip down the spending bill may or may not really personally think that fries and pizza are good for your kids. But they do seem to think that keeping bottomless potatoes on the menu is a good way to keep feeding your students properly inexpensive.
This isn’t the first time that politics have impacted what’s on the plate in schools. In 1982, when many of today’s elementary school students’ parents were lining up with their lunch trays, tough economic times and budget cuts forced schools to look at ways to cut the cost of feeding the children. Unfortunately, some horrible people required that students still get vegetables (crazy, I know) in their diet. But vegetables are so expensive! And thus, the Reagan administration proposed that perhaps ketchup and relish could be considered ”vegetables” to save money. The effort was laughed out of the White House…but in the end, pizza sauce was still given the green light.
School districts, who’d probably like to be able to offer carrots and celery instead of fried hashbrowns and pizza, have stated that the budget is simply too tight–and that feeding kids real veggies would be too expensive. Which is fair, but it points to the underlying issue: that schools aren’t being given the right resources to feed their students real food. And in neighborhoods where school breakfast and lunch may be the only decent meals a kid gets all day, you’re doing more than feeding them–you’re educating them about what’s good to eat. Providing students not only with healthy food, but food that teaches them how to make healthy choices later on in life seems like a valuable thing to invest in.
Image: Jaimie Duplass / Shutterstock
Playing economic games like this is misleading and has the effect of just kicking the ball down the road.
The ball in this case is the health of the future generation and the staggering long term impact on health costs for the nation.
It is no wonder that American children are so fat. It’s bad enough that fast food commercials are shoved down our throats, aside from the fact that that these “restaurants” are on every corner.. bu to add insult to injury, the same shit is being fed to our children in school, and that they have the nerve to pass it off as healthy. Americans are bread to be stupid and fat as hell. So sad.
fuck you
It’s true that American school children are being bombarded with messages and faced with unhealthy choices – but if you live in a first world country I would like to cordially invite you to step off your high horse and realize it happens in EUROPE, TOO!
And by the way, it’s spelled “bred”. Got carbs on the brain?
It shouldn’t be on schools to teach children how to eat, instead it should be on the parents. If a kid doesn’t want veggies it doesn’t matter if the school serves them or not because the kid will simply not eat it. If parents don’t like what is being served in schools then packing a healthy lunch from home is always an option
Unfortunately, etm, sometimes it IS entirely on schools, because packing a healthy lunch from home is NOT an option. As it says in the post, there are families out there who are so impoverished that the only meal their kids get is at school. Additionally, parents are, of course, an influence, but it’s hard to tell kids that pizza isn’t healthy when, 5 days a week at school, it’s being offered as if it is.
We voted in these clunkers to work on JOBS>>>>>and now they are working on rewriting what is a fruit…making it a vegetable…and wasting precious time on idiotic legislation. I am sick of these people. I want to vote all of them out…start over and put in term limits…this has got to stop!
Petition to declare Congress a vegetable:
http://www.change.org/petitions/citizens-of-the-usa-petition-to-declare-congress-a-vegetable
Add your signature and declare Congress a vegetable!
Love this.
Ms. Olsen, you wrote “…keeping bottomless potatoes on the menu is a good way to keep feeding your students properly inexpensive.”
If you were a student in my class and you handed this essay in to me as an assignment I would fail you on the spot. Your shoddy writing in this article just goes to show that women belong in the kitchen and not in positions that require any amount of thought, hard work, or professionalism. Please, for the sake of the future of humanity, get off of the internet and don’t reproduce.
“Congress their bill back–and from it, they’d struck nearly every health requirement, and upheld that pizza is totally on par with lettuce, spinach, and carrots.”
That doesn’t even make any sense… but I shall allow you to reproduce.
Oh, it’s cute that you pulled in the “woman” card.
There is simply nothing I enjoy more than the misogynistic grammar police, who not only value themselves more than women but also value form more than substance. I, on the other hand, would have given you extra credit for recognizing that too many of our elected officials are willing to ignore common sense, good science, and the health of the public they represent so that they may divert the money they save to more important matters, like Wall Street bail-outs, tax breaks for the rich, and unnecessary warfare.
You know what they say, “An ounce of prevention is worth, well, nothing.”
HK
THIS. i too like to honor the aggressively macho male heroes of mine from days gone by. like my grandpa and most of his buddies (RIP), who knew the woman’s place. i do them a solid by trolling random women writers’ grammar anonymously in comment sections of online articles. and alluding to authoritative positions i do not actually have. then i tweet about it.
wait arent tomatoes a fruit?
They sure are, Jeff.
Yes, they definitely are. And yet, when in a sauce, they magically become a vegetable, according to the laws about lunches. It is, in fact, a mystery.
Somewhere, Jamie Oliver is crying right now…
I asked my kids cooking class what they thought.
“Pizza is a vegetable?!?! What the HECK!?!?”
http://vimeo.com/32276643
Amanda!! This video is amazing!